Tetris [2023] – Taron Egerton, Toby Jones, Sofya Lebedeva

Tetris, the movie was a pleasant surprise. While the game will be evergreen, the movie is an enjoyable thriller that’s certainly worth watching for Nintendo and retro gaming fans.

Starring the amazing Taron Egerton, this light thriller has a lot going for it; Political conspiracies, international competition, and tech industry maneuvering still in play today. Just look at the current drama between Sony (Playstation) and Microsoft (Xbox). The movie settles down into an engagingly paranoid 8-bit variation on “Bridge of Spies”. KGB, spies, money, and bribery.

Sure, we’ve seen movies like this before, but this one manages to take the familiar cinematic puzzle pieces and create something that is quite entertaining.

And even if you’ve been living under a rock and never played Tetris, the movie successfully lines up all the complicated pieces of the story into an entertaining whole. It all works, and Egerton and Nikita Efremov are wonderful. In addition, on a pure filmmaking level, the story works because it shows the passion of Henk Rogers (played by Egerton) for his business and the number of obstacles that stand in his way.

Even when he was obviously acting like an honest fool, I couldn’t keep myself from rooting for Egerton because he is just so damn charming. It’s one of his best roles to date.

Should you watch it?

While it’s nowhere near as addictive as the game, Tetris offers a fun, fizzy account of the story behind an 8-bit classic. Who knew that the rights for a simple game would be so complicated?!

Where can I watch it?

You can stream Tetris exclusively on Apple TV+.